Massacre at mall in Omaha; 8 killed

A man dressed in camouflage and armed with a rifle opened fire among holiday shoppers in an Omaha department store Wednesday, killing eight people, wounding at least five others and sending hundreds into terrified panic.

The 19-year-old gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. His body was found on the third floor of the Von Maur department store at bustling Westroads Mall.

Witnesses described the carefree sounds of holiday music suddenly punctuated by rapid gunfire shortly before 2 p.m. They related horrific scenes: multiple people gunned down in the store's customer service department, others shot on a floor below as they were looking up an escalator toward the chaos.

"The shots wouldn't stop," said shopper Carol Padon.

The shooter was identified by police as Robert A. Hawkins. Hawkins, who left a suicide note, had been fired from a job at a Bellevue McDonald's restaurant Wednesday after several months on the job, said Debora Maruca, whose family Hawkins had been staying with.

Maruca said Hawkins told her he was accused of stealing $17 from the restaurant. She said he had also recently broken up with a girlfriend

Maruca said he phoned her about 1 p.m. Wednesday, saying he had left a note for her in his bedroom. She tried to get him to explain, but he hung up, she said.

The suicide note was given to authorities. In it, Hawkins reportedly wrote that he was "sorry for everything," would not be a burden on his family anymore and "now I'll be famous."

Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said the shooting appeared to be random. He would not release the victims' identities and gave no motive for the attack.

Witnesses at the mall described the gunman as having a military-style haircut, wearing a camouflage vest and a black backpack and carrying a rifle.

He was found dead in the store's customer service area, apparently shooting himself before officers arrived. Police recovered an SKS assault rifle believed to have been used by the gunman.

The five wounded people were being treated at Creighton University Medical Center and the Nebraska Medical Center. Two reportedly were in critical condition.

Omaha lawyer Jeff Schaffart, 34, said he didn't realize right away that the bangs he heard at the mall were gunshots. He and his wife had been looking for a dress for their 2-year-old daughter's visit to Santa.

Then he saw the blood streaming down his left arm.

A bullet had gone through his upper arm. Another shot had grazed the pinkie finger on his left hand. Schaffart used his necktie as a tourniquet for his arm wound and put napkins on his finger to stop the bleeding.

At a news conference at Nebraska Medical Center, he said he didn't see the shooter, nor did he see anyone get shot. He said he may have been hit from behind.

Once the shooting started, employees and customers had rushed to hide wherever they could, in storerooms and other rooms off the shopping floor.

Renee Toney was working in the gift-wrap area behind the Von Maur customer service counter when the gunman emerged from a third-floor elevator and began firing into the ceiling.

"He was moving very fast," she said. The shots "were very, very fast, I would say closer to 30 [shots] in all."

A Von Maur supervisor called for everyone to go into a stockroom behind the customer service area, and she rushed there, the others a few feet behind her.

She was the only one of her immediate co-workers to make it to the stockroom.

"None of them made it out," Toney said. "I was up front, and everybody except me was shot. It's a blur. I don't even know how I got to the stockroom. I was the closest one to the stockroom. Within seconds, they were shot right behind me."

A Von Maur supervisor later told Toney that the gunman had said, "Open the safe." One of the employees moved to open the safe, Toney said. "She never made it to the safe. He shot her before she made it."

When police arrived and ushered Toney out, she said she saw blood all over the floor and as many as six bodies, some on top of each other.

Mickey Vickroy, who was wrapping gifts at customer service, said she heard gunshots and someone yell, "Gun!"

Roxanne Philip, another customer service worker, said the gunshots were so close it sounded like they were being fired next to her. She said she took cover and was scared "because I thought I would be next."

Philip said she never saw the shooter, but as she left the customer service area after police arrived, she saw that a woman on the other side of the customer service counter had been shot and appeared to be dead. She said she thought her boss had been shot because she heard him moaning.

Von Maur shopper Padon said she was on the store's second floor when she heard what sounded like 15 to 25 shots. As she hid in a back room, Padon said, "I was so busy praying that it's really hard to tell the details."

Marvelene Sturgeon said she and her daughter were getting ready to leave the mall through Von Maur when the scene turned chaotic.

"People started running out of the door yelling, 'They're shooting, they have guns,' and we heard a lot of shots," the 73-year-old said.

President Bush was in Omaha on Wednesday to attend a fundraiser and had left on Air Force One just an hour before the shootings started. A White House statement said Bush was "deeply saddened by the shootings in Omaha."

The eight deaths mark the deadliest shooting spree in Nebraska since Charles Starkweather almost a half-century ago killed 10 Nebraskans in a multiple-day rampage. He killed his 11th victim before his capture in Wyoming.

One of the last family-owned department store chains, Iowa-based Von Maur has been in business for more than 130 years. The company has three stores in the Chicago area.